Yesterday Paul Krugman took some pot shots at an op-ed that Paul Ryan and I wrote nearly five years ago—an op-ed that was critical of quantitative easing. Here’s why Krugman missed his mark and the QE critics are correct.

Alan Blinder has written another Wall Street Journal article criticizing legislation that would simply require the Fed to describe its rule or strategy for monetary policy. As with his earlier article, Blinder still “shoots at a straw man of his own making, not at the proposed law itself” as I wrote in another John Taylor’s Reply to Alan Blinder for the Wall Street Journal.

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The Working Group on Economic Policy brings together experts on economic and financial policy at the Hoover Institution to study key developments in the U.S. and global economies, examine their interactions, and develop specific policy proposals. Read more...

John Shoven, the Buzz and Barbara McCoy Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics at Stanford University, presented “Life in the Slow Lane: The Rate of Growth of Potential Output of the U.S. Economy.”

Glenn Hubbard, dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School, reviewed his recent book with Tim Kane, Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America.

Avik Roy, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the Opinion Editor at Forbes, discussed his recent book Transcending Obamacare: A Patient Centered Plan for Near-Universal Coverage and Permanent Fiscal Solvency.

This conference aims to consider central bank reforms relating to governance, oversight, and effectiveness. Since the Hoover conference “Frameworks for Central Banking in the Next Century,” held in May 2014, debates about central bank policy have intensified. This second conference will be in a round-table format, with short opening presentations, a lead discussant, and general discussion.

Darrell Duffie, the Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, presented his recent research on “Stresses and Strains in China’s Financial System.”

Steven Davis, the William H. Abbott Professor of International Business and Economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, discussed his work with John Haltiwanger on “Labor Market Fluidity and Economic Performance.”

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Significant gifts for the support of this working group are acknowledged from

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Preston and Carolyn Butcher

Stephen and Sarah Page Herrick

Michael and Rosalind Keiser

Koret Foundation

William E. Simon Foundation

John A. Gunn and Cynthia Fry Gunn

The Working Group on Economic Policy brings together experts on economic and financial policy at the Hoover Institution to study key developments in the U.S. and global economies, examine their interactions, and develop specific policy proposals.

For twenty-five years starting in the early 1980s, the United States economy experienced an unprecedented economic boom. Economic expansions were stronger and longer than in the past. Recessions were shorter, shallower, and less frequent. GDP doubled and household net worth increased by 250 percent in real terms. Forty-seven million jobs were created.

This quarter-century boom strengthened as its length increased. Productivity growth surged by one full percentage point per year in the United States, creating an additional $9 trillion of goods and services that would never have existed. And the long boom went global with emerging market countries from Asia to Latin America to Africa experiencing the enormous improvements in both economic growth and economic stability.

Economic policies that place greater reliance on the principles of free markets, price stability, and flexibility have been the key to these successes. Recently, however, several powerful new economic forces have begun to change the economic landscape, and these principles are being challenged with far reaching implications for U.S. economic policy, both domestic and international. A financial crisis flared up in 2007 and turned into a severe panic in 2008 leading to the Great Recession. How we interpret and react to these forces—and in particular whether proven policy principles prevail going forward—will determine whether strong economic growth and stability returns and again continues to spread and improve more people’s lives or whether the economy stalls and stagnates.

Our Working Group organizes seminars and conferences, prepares policy papers and other publications, and serves as a resource for policymakers and interested members of the public.

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